Unit 3: Grammar in practice

Grammar is the system of rules that governs how words combine into meaningful, unambiguous sentences. In practical communication it determines clarity, register and credibility: a misplaced modifier or a wrong tense can reverse meaning. This unit works from the smallest unit of classification — the part of speech — up to the way verbs encode time through tense and aspect.

• Word classes (parts of speech): every English word belongs to at least one of nine classes, defined by the job it does in a sentence rather than its meaning alone.
• Form vs function: the same word can shift class — "water" is a noun in "drink water" but a verb in "water the plants".
• Open vs closed classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and interjections are open (new members are coined freely); pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and articles are closed (a fixed, small set).
• Tense and aspect: tense locates an action in time (past, present, future); aspect describes how the action unfolds (simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous).

II. The Parts of Speech — the nine word classes

A. Nouns

A noun names a person, place, thing, idea or quality and typically functions as subject or object.

• Common vs proper: city (common) versus Delhi (proper, capitalised).
• Concrete vs abstract: table (perceived by senses) versus honesty (a concept).
• Countable vs uncountable: book/books take a plural and a/an; water, information do not — "an information" is wrong.
• Collective: name a group as a unit — team, jury, flock.
• Number and possession: plural by -s/-es (box → boxes); possession by apostrophe-s (the manager's report).

B. Pronouns

A pronoun replaces a noun to avoid repetition, referring back to an antecedent.

• Personal: I, you, he, she, it, we, they — vary by case: subject she versus object her.
• Possessive: mine, yours, his, ours — "The choice is yours."
• Reflexive: myself, themselves — mirror the subject: "She taught herself French."
• Relative: who, whom, which, that — introduce clauses: "the report that failed".
• Demonstrative / indefinite: this, those; someone, anything, few.
• Agreement rule: the pronoun matches its antecedent in number and gender — "Each student must bring his or her pass," not "their" in strict usage.

C. Verbs

A verb expresses an action, occurrence or state and is the grammatical core of every clause.

• Action vs stative: run, build (action) versus know, believe, own (state) — stative verbs usually resist the continuous.
• Transitive vs intransitive: transitive takes an object ("She wrote a letter"); intransitive does not ("He slept").
• Auxiliary (helping): be, have, do plus modals can, should, must — build tense, voice and mood: "She has finished."
• Finite vs non-finite: finite forms carry tense (writes); non-finite forms are the infinitive (to write), gerund (writing) and participle (written).
• Subject–verb agreement: singular subject → singular verb: "The list of items is long," not "are".

D. Adjectives

An adjective modifies a noun or pronoun, adding description or limiting its reference.

• Attributive vs predicative: before the noun ("a bright idea") or after a linking verb ("the idea is bright").
• Degrees of comparison: positive tall, comparative taller, superlative tallest; long adjectives use more/most — more careful, most careful.
• Order of adjectives: opinion–size–age–shape–colour–origin–material — "a lovely small old round brown Italian wooden table."
• Irregular forms: good → better → best; bad → worse → worst.

E. Adverbs

An adverb modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb or a whole sentence, answering how, when, where or to what degree.

• Types: manner (quickly), time (yesterday), place (here), frequency (often), degree (very).
• Formation: many derive from adjectives by adding -ly — quiet → quietly — but fast and hard are unchanged.
• Position: frequency adverbs sit before the main verb — "She always arrives early" — degree adverbs before the word they intensify.
• Sentence adverbs: comment on the whole clause — "Frankly, the plan failed."

F. Prepositions

A preposition links a noun or pronoun to the rest of the sentence, showing relationships of place, time, direction or manner.

• Place: at a point, in an enclosed space, on a surface — at the door, in the room, on the wall.
• Time: at a clock time, on a day, in a month/year — at 9 a.m., on Monday, in July.
• Direction: to, into, towards, from — "He walked into the office."
• Prepositional phrase: preposition + object = a unit that acts as adjective or adverb — "the book on the shelf."
• Rule: a preposition is followed by an object in the objective case — "between you and me," not "I".

G. Conjunctions

A conjunction joins words, phrases or clauses and signals the logical relation between them.

• Coordinating (FANBOYS): for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so — link equal elements: "tea or coffee."
• Subordinating: because, although, if, when, while — attach a dependent clause: "Although it rained, we left."
• Correlative: paired — either…or, neither…nor, not only…but also — must join grammatically parallel items.
• Punctuation: a comma precedes a coordinating conjunction joining two independent clauses — "She wrote the report, and he reviewed it."

H. Interjections

An interjection is a word or short phrase expressing sudden emotion, grammatically independent of the sentence.

• Emotion signalled: surprise (Oh!), joy (Hurray!), pain (Ouch!), hesitation (Um).
• Punctuation: followed by an exclamation mark for strong feeling or a comma for mild — "Well, I suppose so."
• Register: informal; used sparingly in professional writing.

I. Articles

Articles are determiners that specify whether a noun is definite or indefinite.

• Definite the: a specific, known referent — "the manager we met."
• Indefinite a/an: one non-specific member; a before a consonant sound, an before a vowel sound — a university (consonant /j/), an hour (silent h).
• Zero article: omitted before uncountable or general plurals — "Honesty is valued," "Dogs bark."

III. Tense — locating action in time

Tense combines a time (past, present, future) with an aspect (simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous), giving twelve forms. Anchor verb: work.

A. Present tense

Present tense links action to the moment of speaking or to habitual truth.

• Simple: habits and general truths — "She works in Pune." Third person adds -s.
• Continuous: action in progress now — am/is/are + -ing — "She is working now."
• Perfect: past action with present relevance — have/has + past participle — "She has worked here since 2020."
• Perfect continuous: duration up to now — have/has been + -ing — "She has been working for three hours."

B. Past tense

Past tense places the action wholly before the moment of speaking.

• Simple: a completed past act — "She worked yesterday." Regular verbs add -ed; irregulars change form (go → went).
• Continuous: an action ongoing at a past moment — was/were + -ing — "She was working at noon."
• Perfect: an action completed before another past action — had + past participle — "She had worked before he arrived."
• Perfect continuous: duration up to a past point — had been + -ing — "She had been working for an hour when it stopped."

C. Future tense

Future tense projects the action after the moment of speaking.

• Simple: a future fact or spontaneous decision — will + base — "She will work tomorrow."
• Continuous: action in progress at a future time — will be + -ing — "She will be working at 9 a.m."
• Perfect: action to be completed before a future point — will have + past participle — "She will have worked by June."
• Perfect continuous: duration up to a future point — will have been + -ing — "By May she will have been working here for five years."

D. Simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous — the aspects compared

Each aspect answers a different question about the same action, independent of time.

1. Simple vs continuous: simple states a fact as a whole ("I read"); continuous frames it as ongoing and temporary ("I am reading").
2. Perfect vs perfect continuous: perfect stresses completion and result ("I have read three chapters"); perfect continuous stresses the ongoing duration ("I have been reading all morning").

Worked mapping of eat across present forms:

Simple:              I eat lunch at one.
Continuous:          I am eating lunch now.
Perfect:             I have eaten lunch already.
Perfect continuous:  I have been eating for ten minutes.

• Signal words: now/at the moment → continuous; since/for/already/yet → perfect; for + duration + until now → perfect continuous.
• Stative exception: verbs of state (know, own, believe) take simple, not continuous — "I know the answer," never "I am knowing."